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Recommendation: As CMS continues to implement and refine the contract-level RADV audit process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reducing and recovering improper payments and to improve the accuracy of CMS's calculation of coding intensity, the Administrator should modify that calculation by taking actions such as the following: (1) including only the three most recent pair-years of risk score data for all contracts; (2) standardizing the changes in disease risk scores to account for the expected increase in risk scores for all MA contracts; (3) developing a method of accounting for diagnostic errors not coded by providers, such as requiring that diagnoses added by MA organizations be flagged as supplemental diagnoses in the agency's Encounter Data System to separately calculate coding intensity scores related only to diagnoses that were added through MA organizations' supplemental record review (that is, were not coded by providers); and (4) including MA beneficiaries enrolled in contracts that were renewed from a different contract under the same MA organization during the pair-year period.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: As CMS continues to implement and refine the contract-level RADV audit process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reducing and recovering improper payments. The Administrator should modify CMS's selection of contracts for contract-level RADV audits to focus on those contracts most likely to have high rates of improper payments by taking actions such as the following: (1) selecting more contracts with the highest coding intensity scores; (2) excluding contracts with low coding intensity scores; (3) selecting contracts with high rates of unsupported diagnoses in prior contract-level RADV audits; (4) if a contract with a high rate of unsupported diagnoses is no longer in operation, selecting a contract under the same MA organization that includes the service area of the prior contract; and (5) selecting some contracts with high enrollment that also have either high rates of unsupported diagnoses in prior contract-level RADV audits or high coding intensity scores.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: As CMS continues to implement and refine the contract-level RADV audit process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reducing and recovering improper payments. The Administrator should enhance the timeliness of CMS's contract-level RADV process by taking actions such as the following: (1) closely aligning the time frames in CMS's contract-level RADV audits with those of the national RADV audits the agency uses to estimate the MA improper payment rate; (2) reducing the time between notifying MA organizations of contract audit selection and notifying them about the beneficiaries and diagnoses that will be audited; (3) improving the reliability and performance of the agency's process for transferring medical records from MA organizations, including assessing the feasibility of updating Electronic Submission of Medical Documentation for use in transferring medical records in contract-level RADV audits; and (4) requiring that CMS contract-level RADV auditors complete their medical record reviews within a specific number of days comparable to other medical record review time frames in the Medicare program.

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: As CMS continues to implement and refine the contract-level RADV audit process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reducing and recovering improper payments. The Administrator should improve the timeliness of CMS's contract-level RADV appeal process by requiring that reconsideration decisions be rendered within a specified number of days comparable to other medical record review and first-level appeal time frames in the Medicare program.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: As CMS continues to implement and refine the contract-level RADV audit process to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of reducing and recovering improper payments. The Administrator should ensure that CMS develops specific plans and a timetable for incorporating a RAC in the MA program as mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To help FAA better manage and understand the uncertainties of its forecasts, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA to apply risk-management practices to analyze and report on uncertainty. Specifically, the FAA should, for both the Aerospace and TAF forecasts, analyze and report the forecast's uncertainty, establish forecast error thresholds, and develop an approach that will prompt forecast review when error thresholds are exceeded, and, for TAF forecasts, monitor and publish multi-year historical error performance, as FAA does for the Aerospace Forecast.

Agency: Department of TransportationStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To help FAA better manage and understand the uncertainties of its forecasts, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the FAA to fully document its methods and assumptions in developing the Aerospace and TAF forecasting models to provide greater transparency to internal users and external stakeholders.

Agency: Department of TransportationStatus: Open

Comments: When we confirm what actions the agency has taken in response to this recommendation, we will provide updated information.

Recommendation: To ensure that MA encounter data are of sufficient quality for their intended purposes, the Administrator of CMS should establish specific plans and time frames for using the data for all intended purposes in addition to risk adjusting payments to MAOs.

Comments: HHS was in general agreement with this recommendation. In January 2017 we reported that CMS had made progress in defining its objectives for using MA encounter data for risk adjustment and in communicating its plans and time frames to MAOs. However, although CMS had formed general ideas of how it would use MA encounter data for purposes other than risk adjustment, it had not specified plans and time frames for most of the additional purposes for which encounter data may be used. These other purposes include activities to support program integrity. As of July 2017, CMS officials told us that the agency had not taken any further actions in response to this July 2014 recommendation.

Recommendation: To ensure that MA encounter data are of sufficient quality for their intended purposes, the Administrator of CMS should complete all the steps necessary to validate the data, including performing statistical analyses, reviewing medical records, and providing MAOs with summary reports on CMS's findings, before using the data to risk adjust payments or for other intended purposes.

Comments: While in general agreement with this recommendation, HHS did not commit to completing data validation before using MA encounter data for risk adjustment. In January 2017 we reported that CMS had made limited progress toward validating encounter data by having begun compiling basic statistics on the volume and consistency of data submissions and preparing automated summary reports for MAOs indicating the diagnosis information used for risk adjustment. However the agency had not yet taken other important steps identified in its Medicaid encounter data validation protocol, such as establishing benchmarks for completeness and accuracy. In July 2017, CMS officials told us that the agency had not taken any further actions in response to this July 2014 recommendation.